SATORI

Chinese Wu, in Zen Buddhism of Japan, the inner, intuitive experience of Enlightenment; Satori is said to be unexplainable, indescribable, and unintelligible by reason and logic. It is comparable to the experience undergone by Gautama Buddha when he sat under the Bo tree and, as such, is the central Zen goal. Satori is analogous to the conversion experience or spiritual rebirth of other religious traditions in that it constitutes a complete reordering of the individual in his relation to the universe. Satori usually is achieved only after a period of concentrated preparation and may occur spontaneously as a result of a chance incident, such as a sudden noise. The relative importance of the period of concentrated attention or the sudden breaking through is weighed differently by the two major branches of Zen: the Soto sect emphasizes quiet sitting (zazen), whereas the Rinzai sect devotes more attention to the various methods of bringing about an abrupt awakening. (See also koan).